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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27284470">Bones</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoxNoctua/pseuds/NoxNoctua'>NoxNoctua</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Halloween 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Human, Anal Sex, Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Ceramics, Crowley Has No Genitals, Finger Sucking, M/M, Making your own man with your own hands, Sculpting, spooky story</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:08:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,938</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27284470</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoxNoctua/pseuds/NoxNoctua</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezra Fell takes a ceramics course. He takes to it more than he expected. His final project in the course is the sculpture of a man. A man who has started visiting him in his dreams.</p><p>This man is perfect. Ezra loves him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Halloween 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992094</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Racket’s 13 Days of Halloween, Top Aziraphale Recs</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bones</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is for <a href="https://racketghost.tumblr.com/post/628733325157302272">RacketGhost's 13 Days of Halloween prompts.</a> This is the second day's prompt, Bones.</p><p>Thank you to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/calloftheocean/pseuds/calloftheocean">calloftheocean</a> for letting me bitch and moan about working on this and of course for shouting your encouragement and enthusiasm at me. Thank you to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingprince">RainingPrince</a> for giving this a beta read.</p><p>If you want to skip over the sex scene, stop after the following line:</p><p>"His creation spoke back, a whisper against Ezra’s ear. “Does it feel like a dream?”</p><p>And skip to:</p><p>"Finally, Anthony released him and Ezra collapsed, sweat-drenched, back onto the bed."</p><p>I'll summarize what happened in the endnotes.</p><p>Also!! The lovely and talented <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/call-of-the-ocean">Call of the Ocean</a> made some art for this and I'm absolutely overjoyed by it. It's quite a spoiler, so I've linked to it in the end notes.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Ezra had taken to early-retirement quite easily. With the pressures of the rat race removed, he finally felt free to pursue his more neglected interests. Ceramics, to start. It had been his luck to find a course over the ensuing summer.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was perhaps the only individual of his age in attendance but, thankfully, skill level was varied over the lot of them. Some struggled more than others and some quit the course entirely, but between those that persevered a sort of regiment-like camaraderie had developed. There was a constant din of easy chatter and good-natured ribbing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The hours and weeks of their sessions went by quickly. It was easy enough to lose yourself in the focus of working clay: using your arms to wedge it into pliability, heating it between your hands, pinching and rolling it into shapes. Ezra was surprised how smitten he’d ended up with the process. It offered some reprieve from his own anxieties.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Their early work was straightforward, it grew more complex with each lesson. His first piece had been a simple rounded figurine in the shape of a specter, heavy enough to use as a bookend. When they were moved to the wheel, he’d thrown a wobbly plate and carved the image of a jellyfish into the lip of it. The third piece he returned to sculptural work (deciding that vessels weren’t worth the effort of trying to learn the potter's wheel and its damnable foot pedal)  and made a pear because he liked those.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The course itself was only a few months long and with each passing week he felt the hours of the sessions slip by quicker and quicker. The transformation of bringing something imagined into reality was magical and exhilarating and Ezra found himself mourning the inevitable end of the experience.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With the arrival of those final weeks came the development stages for final projects. There was a new and palpable excitement in the air as everyone shared their plans. Someone was making a tea set, the cups would be made to look like open flowers (Ezra, despite his skepticism, hoped it would turn out rather lovely.) Someone else endeavored to sculpt a “realistic owl” and another was excited to use a metallic glaze on their scales of Libra.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra had been impressed by all their ideas. He hardly felt as inspired.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What are you making?” Someone had finally asked him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He settled back into his chair and stated matter-of-factly, “I’m going to make a man.” When he went home that evening and cooked something simple for dinner, he’ll only briefly wonder where the idea had come from.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The weeks that followed saw the course enter into a flurry of focused hands and subdued conversation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra had not made </span>
  <em>
    <span>this kind</span>
  </em>
  <span> of figure before but such would not be a deterrent. He was prepared to invest himself fully into this final piece, a last send off to the summer course that he’d so wholly enjoyed. He made photocopies of the relevant pages of an anatomy book, spread them out on the work tables, and studied them with a quiet intensity.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At some point, his instructor had sat with him, given her professional guidance on his project. There was a brief moment where Ezra had felt too overwhelmed by the scope of the work but his instructor had patted him on the shoulder and smiled her reassurance. “It’s an ambitious project but I think you should follow your ambition anyhow, no matter the challenge.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra had smiled in return and nodded resolutely, “I will.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At the beginning of subsequent sessions, he’d carefully remove his materials from the shelf space allotted to him and pour over his anatomical diagrams. There was </span>
  <em>
    <span>work</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be done: a skeleton made of wire, clay muscle and skin, attractive hands and feet, a handsome face. The body was the least intimidating (no less detailed but Ezra ignored that) and so that is where he began.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first week of the sculpture Ezra developed the torso: thin with a well-defined curvature in the ribs, a jutting of hip bones. The next session he modeled the arms, gently sloping the biceps and forearms with lean muscle. Finally, he created the legs, just as long and lean as the rest of the sculpture but with strong thighs and athletic calves. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At the onset of his idea, Ezra had already decided this man would be attractive. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>type</span>
  </em>
  <span> of attractive he was still uncertain of. Peculiarly, the kind you can’t look away from? Conventionally, easy on the eyes but a bit bland? Somewhere in the middle, the kind that photographers favored where the arrangement of features was attractive but their symmetry was just a </span>
  <em>
    <span>touch</span>
  </em>
  <span> off, or where one feature stood out as unconventionally attractive but when organized among the rest was compelling? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anatomy books were an indispensable resource for the form and figure but the elements of this sculpture that made him feel alive and human continued to escape Ezra. At the end of each session, he would place the vaguely human-shaped collection of wire, foil, and clay back onto its shelf. In the evenings, over dinner and wine, he’d mentally return back to that shelf, mull over eyes and noses and lips and ears.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At some point Ezra had given up, releasing himself of the self-assigned requirement to give his sculpture a head. He was running out of time now (the course was in its last weeks) and he still had to create hands and feet. Ezra was replacing his statuette onto the shelf when the instructor approached him, “Still no head, I see. Struggling with the face, then?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra had smiled a bit self-deprecatingly. “Ah. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes.</span>
  </em>
  <span> I’m afraid that I am. I’d rather resigned myself to keeping him headless, if I’m to be honest.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The instructor tsked and shook her head. “Why don’t you take him home for the next week? Perhaps working on it there will help. Put yourself to the challenge of sculpting the head and if you hate it, you don’t need to attach it. What do you think?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra hummed to himself and looked at his statue. After a moment of thought, he said, “That sounds like a perfectly splendid way to spend my evenings.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Later, as he covered his dining room table in newsprint and sipped his wine, he would allow himself the humor of the situation. Compared to other men, his age or otherwise, wasn’t he a bit fortunate to bring home a man of his own design? For the remainder of the night, he sat contemplatively, staring at the unfinished sculpture, thinking about configurations of features and the nature of beauty.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The following evenings continued on in the same way: he would pour himself a glass of wine, put on a record, and return to his sculpture. Ezra was yet prepared to tackle the ongoing issue of this man’s face but that was fine because there were other features he needed to complete. Features that would slowly expand this sculpture’s humanity, reveal himself the man he Ezra wanted him to be.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For the first night, it would be the hands. To Ezra’s chagrin, those too generated questions about </span>
  <em>
    <span>beauty.</span>
  </em>
  <span> What sort of hands did he find beautiful? What sort of hands did Ezra </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> to create? His past partners’ hands hadn’t gone without notice but they also didn’t inspire much contemplation. So he traveled back into his memories, considered the cross-section of all his romances, and settled on an image. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Elegant in length and dexterity. Pronounced knuckles that did not look out of place but only served to emphasize slim fingers. The kind of fingers he could easily imagine slotting between his own, curling around his wrist, sliding up his neck and into his hair.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra shuddered. Cleared his throat. Rolled his neck. Drank the rest of his wine.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Right. Won’t do to fantasize about your own sculpture,” he said quietly to himself with a little laugh.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Just as the hours of each course session had quickly slipped by, so did the evenings in his own home. The work was meditative. One glass of wine, a second, a third. He moved as if in a trance, warming the clay between his skin, delicately pressing it into the right shapes. By midnight, he had two completed hands, which he placed carefully onto the sculpture.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Was it a masterwork? Hardly. But when Ezra turned to sleep that night, satisfied with his hard work, he could swear he felt long thin fingers slip between his own.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With hands completed, that left only the feet and the face, so he avoided the latter and focused on the former. After he had the necessary accouterments in place (music, wine), he settled before his sculpture. Ezra had considered even less the nature of the beauty of </span>
  <em>
    <span>feet.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Were </span>
  <em>
    <span>long </span>
  </em>
  <span>feet attractive? Long </span>
  <em>
    <span>toes? </span>
  </em>
  <span>A high arch, perhaps? He crossed his arms over his chest and stared.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What sort of feet would </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>have, dear? I don’t even know what your </span>
  <em>
    <span>face</span>
  </em>
  <span> looks like,” he thought out loud. And then, with a resigned sigh, said,  “Perhaps, it will… Perhaps it will simply </span>
  <em>
    <span>come</span>
  </em>
  <span> to me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So he got to work. One glass of wine saw him through shaping the gentle slope of the top of the foot, the little divot below the lateral malleolus. The second glass fueled him as he rolled the side of his thumb to form the arch of the foot. Before sculpting the toes, he poured himself a third glass.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do I give you…</span>
  <em>
    <span>long</span>
  </em>
  <span> toes?” He canted his head to the side and considered the aesthetic draw of long toes: the way you can make them </span>
  <em>
    <span>curl.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The third glass of wine was smudged with clay by the time he finished it. He wasn’t certain if alcohol was helping or hurting, but making wee little toes that matched the vision he saw in his mind was a test of patience.  By the time he’d carved small grooves to delineate each toe from the next, his hands were cramping and his vision felt strained.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sleep well, my dear,” he said at the end of the night as he stood away from the dining table.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After Ezra wakes up the following morning, while he brushes his teeth, he’ll recall a sweet dream of curled toes in bedsheets.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With the arrival of the weekend, Ezra had begun to feel burnt-out on both his sculpture and his wine. He took to the company of a friend instead, someone who might speak back when spoken to (and who was also keen to discuss the progress of his work.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you going to name him?” Anathema had asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra looked thoughtful for a moment. “I hadn’t considered it.” His expression was imploring when he looked at her, “Should I? I thought ‘Man’ would be sufficient but do you suppose that might be a bit insulting?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anathema had laughed, pushed her glasses up her nose. “I don’t think he has feelings to hurt, Ezra. I thought it might just be fun. You’re like...Adam in the Garden. Have to give a name to your creatures. Unless you intend to just call him ‘Boyfriend’ and be done with it.” She had started grinning and Ezra, being no fool, pursed his lips at her teasing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Though he had intended to take the weekend off, he found it difficult to resist the draw of the sculpture. Even when not working on it with his hands, he still found himself sitting at his dining table, trailing the lean lines of the statuette with his eyes. It had felt a bit perverse, as if he was ogling, but he reminded himself that this was his own creation made by his own hands and if he were allowed to ogle anything, surely it was this? Besides, surely he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>appraising</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> ogling.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sunday broke on the next dawn and Ezra made breakfast. He ate seated in front of the sculpture, with his plate balanced on his knees.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>must</span>
  </em>
  <span> give you a face, mustn't I?” He asked while chewing on a piece of bacon. “Or I should at least </span>
  <em>
    <span>try. </span>
  </em>
  <span>I suppose you deserve as much.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He washed up, partook in some light reading, and by nightfall was already placing thin layers of clay on his sculpture. “Would be a bit disturbing if you had a head and no neck to rest it on, don’t you think?” He said to no one. As he smoothed his finger down the front of the neck, he imagined an adam’s apple there, the gentle latitudinal glide of it when swallowing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With a laugh, he sat back into his chair and balanced his wrists against the edge of the table. He tilted his head to the side and assessed his sculpture with squinted eyes. “What </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> you look like, my dear creation?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>attractive to him? What would the features of his own created man </span>
  <em>
    <span>be? </span>
  </em>
  <span>A square jaw, even teeth, full lips? Blonde? Brunette? Green eyes? Ezra had an appreciation for the aesthetics of the figure but he had rarely been a love-at-first-sight type. He knew through experience that good looks frequently hid the grotesque and that beauty was often overlooked when the exterior appeared displeasing. But Ezra could not </span>
  <em>
    <span>get to know</span>
  </em>
  <span> his statuette. He would have to decide that part of him too, that inside he was a good and kind man. A man without deceit. So his outsides could match his insides.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well,” he said, rising to a stand, “perhaps you’ll visit me again in my dreams and offer me some kind of divine inspiration.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he slept that evening, he dreamt of a long slender neck and the gentle slope of a hooked nose.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The following morning took him like a man possessed. He threw off his bedclothes, beelined to the dining room table, and built the face of a man he’d only seen in his dreams. It was still dark when he began. His hair was a mess of wayward curls and his breath was stale, but Ezra could not be stopped.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Around him, the strokes of daybreak bathed his dining room in warm shades of orange. He rolled clay between the hollows of his palms, added a chunk to make a jaw, carved out where the eyes might sit, placed a long pyramid for a nose, slivers for lips, and used his array of tools to smooth and indent and mold the face into something vaguely human-shaped. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As the sun moved across the sky, the shadows in his home grew shorter and then stretched out into a different direction entirely. Ezra smelled like body odor. After he had carved out hollows for eyes, he held the small shaped clay head at arm’s length and squinted one eye. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He laughed, a quick puff of air. “There you are. I think. Finally. Yes.” He felt as if he’d run a marathon and breathed much the same. With shaking hands, he carefully speared the small head of clay onto the exposed armature extending from the neck and smoothed the gaps over with his fingers. Ezra remained still in that position.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he felt his shoulders going stiff, he dropped his hands to his thighs, curled his hands into fists. He swallowed around a lump forming in his throat and had to blink away the blurriness in his vision. He laughed and the choked sound of it surprised him. “My dear, my dear. Look what you’ve done to me. I think I may have…overworked myself.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So Ezra stood, walked without thinking into his kitchen, poured himself a healthy glass of wine, and drank the entirety of it in one go. Yes, alright, it was barely the late afternoon but what did any of that matter? He had </span>
  <em>
    <span>made a man!</span>
  </em>
  <span> With his own hands! </span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> was worth celebrating! Or de-stressing? Or whatever the buzzing underneath his skin needed to release itself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The wine hit his empty stomach like a rock. He felt a comforting lightness when he finally circled back around to the statuette. With his hands on his hips, Ezra appraised his work from a distance.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Distinct cheekbones, a sloping nose, wide-set mouth with thin lips, a small indent in the middle of the chin. Both the skull and pelvis remained smooth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry my dear boy, it appears I did not give you any hair. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Or</span>
  </em>
  <span> genitals,” he came to realize with a laugh that started off a bit higher-pitched than he was accustomed to hearing from himself. “I suppose you can have whatever you like of either set, can’t you? What a luxury.” The room had started to spin around him and he realized a bit belatedly that perhaps he really </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> overworked himself. Yes, the buzzing under his skin had mellowed out thanks to the wine but it had also increased its breadth of impact. He felt a bit manic. When he thought he saw the statuette smile back at him, he decided he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually</span>
  </em>
  <span> feeling a bit </span>
  <em>
    <span>delirious,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and immediately took himself to an early bed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That night he dreamed of eyes glowing in the dark.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The difference between the week and weekend for a retired person is, well, just the name of the day really. Old habits die hard though and Ezra continued the practice of focusing the first eight hours of his day on productive endeavors.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He disliked cleaning but he did it anyway. Not that he enjoyed a dirty house but he often felt his energies were best expended elsewhere. As he swept the wood floors of his home, he saw a long dark shadow from the corner of his eye. His heart leapt into his throat but when he looked, there was nothing there but an empty hallway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Exercise was good for the mind, he decided immediately. He set the broom away and slipped on his shoes. The laces of his oxfords were time-consuming but he enjoyed feeling dapper and thus continued to suffer their inconvenience. When he knelt down to tie them up, he saw naked feet right outside the boundary of his vision. Two sets of five toes each. He gasped, fell backward, and scrambled to look up at empty air.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Right. Nothing there. Of course there wasn’t.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra took a deep breath in through his nose and released it through his mouth. He was being ridiculous. He needed to get out of his head. Out of his house. When he finally set out on his walk, it was with the laces tucked into his socks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That evening he met with Anathema for dinner. When she asked him about his progress, he blanched and tried to change the subject instead. She mistook his avoidance for humility and pushed on, raising both eyebrows with a mischievous grin, “Do you think you’ll find this man? I mean, in the flesh.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra felt all the color leave his face. His chair scratched against the floor as he stood up abruptly. “I think I’ll be heading home now. Sorry Anathema, I’m suddenly not feeling well.” He left her there, with her mouth agape.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he returned home, he turned the light on in every room. He gave only fleeting glances to his sculpture and instead busied himself with checking every cupboard, behind every drape, and inside any nook or cranny that his imagination might find tempting. Finally, after he’d satisfied his paranoia, he stood before his creation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It remained in place upon its wood base, standing contrapposto. Standing still. Standing unmoving. Ezra immediately felt foolish, something akin to shame washed over him. He felt embarrassed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I needed a little bit of ‘me-time.’ I hope you’ll understand,” he said with a nervous laugh, as if pleading.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The statue said nothing in return because of course it wouldn’t. It was a statue. A thing of Ezra’s own design, that only existed because he had willed it into shape with his own two hands and his one mind. He huffed out a sigh, rolled his eyes, and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m being ridiculous,” he mumbled to himself and walked away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra took a bottle of wine with him to bed that night, something to help ease the nerves. He slid into the cool comfort of his bed, propped open a book, and drank straight from the bottle. When his eyes finally drifted closed, it was with a smile. Despite what his overactive imagination had wrought, he was excited to show his coursemates his work. Surely they would be pleasantly surprised by his progress.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe it had been a bad idea to go to sleep wine-drunk. His dreams had an increased vividness to them. He was visited again by long fingers between his own but this time there was a second hand, scratching gently up the back of his neck and into his hairline. And </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh</span>
  </em>
  <span> did it feel </span>
  <em>
    <span>good.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The morning arrived and he braced for the inevitable grogginess that post-wine consumption always left him with. Where he expected the early rays of dawn, he saw only darkness. Ezra did not recall closing the blinds but even if he had, they weren’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> effective. When he turned his head to check the time, his mind realized, with a slow rising horror, that there was still the sensation of a hand in his and, more alarmingly, one at the nape of his neck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra shouted inward, an airy sort of yelp, and immediately launched himself upright, right into the bare chest of a man. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Before him, cutting through the dark, were two golden points of light.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra wanted to open his mouth to scream but he could not. He felt transfixed, found he could not look away from that </span>
  <em>
    <span>glow</span>
  </em>
  <span>. His heart was impossibly loud in his ears.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he tried to speak, his tongue was like wet paper in his mouth. The words dissolved.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The moon cast a silvery light across Ezra’s bedroom and in the relief of its shadows he could make out the features of a gently hooked nose, wide mouth, thin lips, high cheekbones. The face of his sculpture leaned closer and smiled.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Y-y-you,” Ezra started, his jaw working around words he did not want to say or could even comprehend into completion, “this can’t be.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His sculpture continued to stare, its smile growing wider.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lord but what a beautiful creature Ezra had created.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His sculpture brushed its nose against Ezra’s temple, then whispered into his ear, “But it is, my angel.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra hadn’t built vocal cords but still his sculpture could </span>
  <em>
    <span>speak</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The sound of its voice was deep, a low timbre, something gravely that rumbled outward from its chest. It was the most </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect</span>
  </em>
  <span> sound.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra’s creation was </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Something about that realization released him from his shock, or perhaps it was some sort of autonomous response, Ezra couldn’t rightly say, but his freehand was now exploring, recalling the intimate details of his sculpture’s development, how he had pinched and smoothed the clay between his fingers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His hand glided gently along its -- his -- narrow waist, explored the skin there, warm under his hand. There was no residue of clay, no friction of it under his fingers, just the smooth lines of a delicately sloped waist that led to the tops of bony hips (of which he had also created.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“This is surely a dream,” Ezra said quietly, as if to only himself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His creation spoke back, a whisper against Ezra’s ear. “Does it feel like a dream?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra wanted to say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Yes, absolutely,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> but his brain was taking too long to fire. He was struggling to process the moment. When the hot, velvet surface of his creation’s tongue licked delicately at his earlobe, he felt it like a brand. The sensation of it scorched him, spidered up the back of his neck and along his shoulders. He could not help the shuddering inhale he took.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>have</span>
  </em>
  <span> been dreaming of me,” his creation drawled, a low rumble that reverberated through the both of them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I — yes,” Ezra gasped.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a heat driving up into his face now, extending from somewhere deep in his torso, climbing up his chest and neck, settling into the web of nerves scattered across his cheeks and skull. It was then he finally heard his own labored breathing. The sound of it was embarrassing but he had little room in his brain for that depth of self-awareness.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” his creation said and pulled away to look Ezra in the face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“F-for what?” Ezra breathed in response.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His query went unanswered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Moonlight spilled into Ezra’s room and illuminated his creation’s face once more. He could see the chin with the shallow indent, he could see the wide mouth and thin lips, he could see the handsome aquiline nose, he could see the hollow of eyes, but where they remained empty in the statuette, were now occupied by gold, glowing and bright in the dark. He was hypnotized.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re beautiful,” Ezra whispered and brought his freehand up to his creation’s face, cupped it, and trailed his thumb along the defined edge of a cheekbone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Because you made me this way.” His creation continued to smile. It eased Ezra’s heart.</span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>He felt hair</span> <span>at the tips of his fingers, angled his head for a better look, and pushed his hand further up. There was a delighted laugh that bubbled up out of Ezra as he saw, looped between his fingers, long strands of red hair.</span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You have </span>
  <em>
    <span>hair,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Ezra said with disbelief.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man laughed and dipped his chin just-so, looking at Ezra coyly from beneath his lashes. “You said I could have whatever I like.” He placed his forehead against Ezra’s. “…do you like it?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a brief pause before Ezra answered. He laughed again, something small that shook his shoulders. “How could I not? You are </span>
  <em>
    <span>divine.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His creation chuckled and the gentle shudder of it caused his long red hair to spill down around his shoulders, veiling him from the moonlight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra won’t recall who moved first, he’ll only recall the feeling of his creation’s soft lips. The gentle glide of them across his own, the velveteen smoothness of his tongue as it breached his mouth and lapped against his own. Ezra also won’t know if what he’s doing is </span>
  <em>
    <span>right, proper, correct.</span>
  </em>
  <span> What did it mean to kiss a thing of your own creation? What did it mean when that thing, that creation, kissed back? What did it mean when that creation pushed you in closer with the hand at the nape of your neck?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’ll only know the certainty of the physicality of the moment. The weight of his creation in his lap. The feeling of his waist in his hand. Nails scratching against the back of his skull. Mouths, wet, tongues sliding against each other. Heat prickling down his spine, between his legs.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra groaned into his creation’s mouth and his creation responded by gently biting his lower lip.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Within the recesses of Ezra’s better senses, something told him to slow down, to take a breath, to think about what was happening, consider the impossibility of the moment. He attempted to pull away but his creation held him tight, wrapped his free hand around his shoulder and pressed them together, shoulder to chest to stomach to hips. His creation slid himself more fully into Ezra’s lap, bracketing his body between his naked thighs. It was with a confusing mixture of shame and horror that Ezra realised he was hard, that he could feel the weight of his creation bearing down on top of him. That the friction it created was desirable. That Ezra desired his creation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They eventually pulled away from the kiss, breathless and panting. Ezra glanced down to his creation’s lips, noticed how they were rubbed raw and pink around the edges. Ezra had done that. They had done that together. Ezra had formed that mouth with his own hands. He had made it look kissworn with his own mouth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a wild surge of possessiveness that shot through him. It manifested as a deep electrical shiver that traveled the entirety of his extremities. It also, distressingly, aroused him. His cock twitched in his pajama bottoms. He felt too hot in the face. He felt mortified.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His creation didn’t seem to mind. Rather the opposite, Ezra discovered, because he raised his hips and ground back down against him. Ground down against him in the most wanton serpentine movement that Ezra had ever seen, or at least had done to him. His creation’s entire body rolled and Ezra was no longer in control of his hands as they both slid around his waist, scooped around to his back, and followed the line of it down to his creation’s ass. The one he had sculpted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His creation continued the rocking motion. Ezra felt dizzy, fuzzy around the edges. His head was prickling and he found himself rocking back up into the juncture of his creation’s thighs. Ezra’s head lolled back against the headboard and he made the most embarrassing noise, something between a moan and a sigh.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I,” Ezra started, trying to speak through the constant grinding of their bodies against each other, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“hh,</span>
  </em>
  <span> is this, </span>
  <em>
    <span>hah,</span>
  </em>
  <span> alright?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For better or for worse (Ezra really couldn’t say at this point,) the grinding stopped. He lifted his head. It felt like a rock balanced precariously on his shoulders.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In the dark were those two glowing eyes, staring straight at Ezra. Pinning him to the headboard, to the bed. His creation smiled, slowly. “Is this what you want?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I-I don’t understand.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shh, Ezra. Tell me what you want.” He leaned forward, dipped his head into the crook of Ezra’s neck, and kissed it. Gently.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra shuddered. Why did his mouth feel so </span>
  <em>
    <span>hot</span>
  </em>
  <span> against his skin? Like he was made of fire.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Go on,” his creation urged him and kissed his neck again, just the gentlest press of his lips against his skin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I-I don’t understand the question.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you want me, Ezra?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra could feel teeth now, dragging across that delicate area of his neck. He could feel the flat rows of them, the slight point of canines. He could feel his creation sucking his skin into his mouth. He could feel that wet heat, that fine line of pleasure and pain.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra knew he wanted his creation but he could not bring himself to say it aloud. He was not sure if it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>right, correct, proper. </span>
  </em>
  <span>So he found something else to say instead. His creation did not cease sucking a bruise into his neck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I, </span>
  <em>
    <span>hh, </span>
  </em>
  <span>want,” he could tell his creation was listening because, blessedly, he had let up the work with his mouth, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“hah.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Yes. I-I want to know,” Ezra swallowed, “I want to know your name.” He stalled, but he hadn’t lied.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Impossibly, all the blood in Ezra’s body flooded into his face because his creation started laughing. It was a deep and throaty laugh and he had sat up to let it carry out into the bedroom.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course you do.” He sounded consoling and Ezra was unsure what to make of that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Even though his erection had softened, he still felt dizzy and heavy-headed. His skin felt a bit too tight, or maybe it was the pajamas making him feel a bit too warm. There was too much energy buzzing in him and it nearly made his teeth chatter when he tried to speak, but his creation interrupted him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You, my sweet angel, may call me Anthony.” There was a laugh hidden somewhere in that declaration, balanced right on the edge of his grin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Anthony,” Ezra repeated. Thankfully his teeth did not chatter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Anthony,” he whispered in return and leaned in to kiss the tip of Ezra’s nose.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His creation -- no, Anthony! -- had a name! Not only had he a name but it was one that he had given to himself. Yes, sure, his creation -- no, Anthony -- was sitting right there as a flesh and blood thing but his creation’s -- no, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Anthony’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> -- self-actualization was </span>
  <em>
    <span>humanizing.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lord how he loved his creation. He loved </span>
  <em>
    <span>Anthony.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Immediately.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra raised a hand to caress Anthony’s face. When Anthony leaned into it, Ezra could feel the distinct pressure of tears at the corners of his eyes. He blinked them away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony turned into Ezra’s hand, kissed the palm of it, and then cupped it with both of his own hands. He brought it down to his mouth where he kissed each knuckle, starting with the top row and slowly working his way down and across.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“These beautiful hands. You have made me. Let me show my gratitude, please?” And he sucked a finger into his mouth to demonstrate his meaning. Ezra imagined the feeling of the heat of Anthony’s mouth around his cock instead, the way those soft lips and that velvet tongue would feel pulling him in, lathing over him, sucking him down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lord how Ezra </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> him. He wanted </span>
  <em>
    <span>Anthony.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra made more embarrassing sounds but he did not have the sense to care because he was fully hard again and Anthony had started rolling down into him. Ezra reached a hand between them, in search of Anthony’s sex, remembering that yes he had not made him one but he had given him permission to have whatever he liked. Cock or cunt it didn’t matter, really. Ezra just wanted to </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What Ezra </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> feel was nothing, just smooth bare skin. He jerked both hands away from Anthony, shoved them down beside him into the mattress. He felt panicked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why -- you -- there’s --”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony looked sly. “You said I’m beautiful. You said I’m divine. You said I could have whatever I like. This is whatever I like. But I’d also like </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> and you’re making that very difficult for me, angel.” Ezra did not miss the way that Anthony’s voice dropped lower, a deep rumble.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra stared at him wide-eyed, swallowed, breathed in deep through his nose, and exhaled. He let his eyes close for a moment, so he could recenter himself. Anthony was right. Ezra was still shocked. He also felt, mixed up in the cocktail of confusing emotions the situation generated, shame. Anthony </span>
  <em>
    <span>was perfect</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Ezra would not make him feel any less than just that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You are beautiful and divine, my dearest Anthony. I,” he opened his eyes, “you see, I want to make sure you feel good too. All this trouble you’ve put yourself through to visit. It is the least I could do, yes?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony tossed his head back in a laugh. “Angel, angel, </span>
  <em>
    <span>angel.</span>
  </em>
  <span> You have already done so much. Do you know what it’s like to endure the hands of a man on you, folding and molding you into being? A man whose touch you cannot return? Ezra, I have been </span>
  <em>
    <span>dying</span>
  </em>
  <span> to get my hands on you. Put yours back on me, please. Let me </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, please.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony slipped his hand between them and palmed Ezra’s flagging cock through his pajama bottoms. “Take me, angel. Fuck me. Let me feel you. Let me feel more than just your hands.” He was still moving his hands over Ezra’s cock. Ezra helplessly ground into him. “Let me feel </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> inside </span>
  <em>
    <span>me,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> he continued lowly, “Fuck me so the only thing I know to say is your name. Fill me up with you. Never let me forget you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra didn’t take the time to ponder that last statement. He couldn’t. All required electricity to keep his brain running was being redirected to every other part of his body. He had no more resources to give to rational operation and thought. He had only his baser needs to run on and those baser needs said he needed to be inside Anthony and he needed Anthony to say his name and he needed, absolutely </span>
  <em>
    <span>must,</span>
  </em>
  <span> come inside him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed</span>
  </em>
  <span> to do all these things because his creation was Anthony and Anthony was perfect and Anthony wanted him to do all those things.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was no time for preparation (did Anthony need that?), there was only driving </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Ezra scrambled his hands between them to push down the waist of his pajama bottoms. His cock was painfully hard and heavy and felt hot exposed to the cool air of his bedroom.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony rested his forearms on Ezra’s shoulders, lifted himself up, and lowered back down onto Ezra. For all the frantic need Anthony had expressed and that Ezra was suddenly drunk with, it was a devastatingly slow descent.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony was hot and tight and he felt so </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect</span>
  </em>
  <span>. When he was fully seated, Ezra could do nothing but shudder. He was so sensitive </span>
  <em>
    <span>everywhere</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The silk of his pajamas drew goosebumps along his skin, his nipples hardened against the smooth material, the tops of his thighs felt caressed. Ezra dug his fingers into Anthony’s ass, grabbed it up with his hands, and let out a low rolling groan.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>From his position, Ezra did not have much leverage to move. That didn’t matter because Anthony was already sliding back up the hard length of Ezra’s shaft, pausing at the end, and then sliding back down. A slow, torturous motion. Ezra’s eyes rolled into the back of his head.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Angel, angel,” he gasped out, back on the upstroke again, “you feel </span>
  <em>
    <span>so good.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra moaned as Anthony settled back down on him again. He could barely formulate thought. The only thing he knew was he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> to make Anthony feel good. And Anthony had asked him to fuck him so the only thing he knew to say was his name.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As if gathering up a pile of blankets, Ezra gathered up Anthony into his arms and swung them both around so that Anthony lay back against the bed and Ezra loomed over him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony’s eyes went wide but then he grinned. From below, he looked sly like a fox. He lifted his long legs and wrapped them around Ezra’s waist.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra bore down into him. There was no slow, torturous pace. There was instead the slapping sound of skin-on-skin as Ezra fucked Anthony into the mattress. There was the sound of his headboard drumming a beat against the wall. There was Anthony’s rhythmic keening every time Ezra drew out of him and rammed back in.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony looked up at him with wide, golden eyes and Ezra could not look away. His orgasm exploded out of him and he came inside Anthony, his hips stuttering through the waves of it. His body shuddered. Anthony held him in place, tightening his legs around him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Moments passed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Finally, Anthony released him and Ezra collapsed, sweat-drenched, back onto the bed. The room spun, the light of the moon drew out all the shadows. There was a headache forming behind his eyes and his lids felt heavy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I-I’m very sleepy, dear,” Ezra said. He thought his voice sounded distant.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony leaned up, kissed him on the cheek. “Sleep now, my angel. Thank you for giving me life.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As sleep overtook him, he idly wondered if Anthony preferred coffee or tea in the mornings.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what possessed me to undertake this level of work, but I don’t have any regrets about it.” Ezra heard a voice say. A masculine one.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You finally settled on a face! What was your inspiration?” Ezra heard another voice say. A feminine one.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He opened his eyes. His heart dropped like a stone into his stomach. Somehow he was already in the ceramics lab.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>How had he gotten here? Was he sleepwalking? He did not remember waking up or brushing his teeth or bathing. Or getting coffee or tea for Anthony. Ezra prepared to open his mouth to speak but he couldn’t because that same masculine, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Anthony’s voice,</span>
  </em>
  <span> interrupted him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Have a bit of a’thing for angels. Or maybe it’s blonde, can’t always tell,” he heard Anthony laugh.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra felt the floor drop out from under him. Gravity took on a new shape, a new dimension. He felt </span>
  <em>
    <span>impossibly</span>
  </em>
  <span> heavy. Maybe he was dreaming. Sleep paralysis? What’s the thing you’re supposed to do to escape a bout of sleep paralysis? Wiggle your fingers or toes?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra’s fingers and toes would not wiggle.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He heard Anthony speak again. “Anyways, it was a lot of work, this one, but I’m proud of it. Thanks, professor, for all your support.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He heard the feminine voice of his instructor. “Yes, well done, indeed! Are we ready to move on now? Who would like to go next?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then Ezra saw it. Felt it first, pressure against the top of his skull, and then a hand larger than himself, stroking the entire side of his body like a treasured figurine.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He tried to open his mouth to speak and could not. He tried to turn his head to look and could not. His hands did not close into fists or stretch to open. His legs would not move. He was stiff all over and suddenly the world around him seemed very, very large.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ezra felt Anthony’s hand slide underneath the small wooden base he was affixed to. He felt the air rush by him as he was lifted, he watched the too-large room spin around him, he heard the steady clack of footfalls as he was marched to the shelves where all the ceramics projects were stored.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthony slid the sculpture of Ezra onto the shelf and turned him around so he could peer out. Anthony smiled at Ezra the sculpture and then Anthony the human walked away. The lights went out.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Firstly, this was a real labor of love. I worked on this damned thing for over a week (mainly because I can't focus for a damn.) But also it needed a lot of editing. I thought I'd hate it at the end but I'm actually pretty pleased that I finished it.</p><p>For those who skipped the sex scene but want to know if they missed anything:</p><p>Ezra is hesitant to have sex with his sculpture because y'know, it's his sculpture. Kind of weird. Anthony insists he wants Ezra in that way and does most of the goading and seducing. At the end, Anthony thanks Ezra for "giving me life."</p><p>Anywho, I'm over <a href="https://noxiraphale.tumblr.com/">here on the Tumblrs!</a> Come do a screm with me about Good Omens or whatever. Sometimes I make drunken melodramatic posts too, like one does.</p><p>Please see this <a href="https://call-of-the-ocean.tumblr.com/post/634253104115810304/made-of-clay-and-bones-so-my-lovely-friend">lovely art from Call of the Ocean!!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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